The Porthampton Bugle

Five people were rescued from Porthampton harbour after their 36 foot yacht capsized and sank.

The colourfully named “Wayfarer’s Wench” was on its first journey since the wooden keeled sloop received a £10,000 restoration over the winter.

The unlucky crew were rescued by the Porthampton Harbour Patrol after they received the distress signal from the yachts captain.

“We received a distress call stating that the Wayfarer’s Wench was sinking from the captain of the yacht and as soon as we had received their location and after assessing the urgency of the situation we responded as quickly as we could.” Said Harbour Patrol skipper Martin Chiltern.

“We arrived to find that the yacht had capsized and the crew holding onto the sinking hull in their lifejackets. The water is still pretty cold at this time of year so we tried to get them on board as quickly as possible and radioed ahead for them to be met by paramedics when we arrived back at port.”

The crew were in good spirits as the paramedics treated them for the effects of the cold water but they were cheery enough and managed to tell us what they thought had happened.”

When contacted about the incident, the skipper of the Wayfarer’s Wench, Pete Button, said “Something obviously hadn’t been sealed properly when they did the works over the winter and we soon realised that we were taking on water. A sudden strong gust of wind sent us over but we’d all seen what was coming and were ready to go over. The Harbour Patrol was fantastic and arrived in no time, if not for them I’m sure we would have ended up far worse off.”